Viridescent - the Asian Turfgrass Center blog

Why "Liquid" Fertilization is Better Terminology than "Foliar" Fertilization

When applying fertilizer to turfgrass plants, there are two general types of application: liquid and granular. Granular products are applied in a dry form, while liquid products are applied as a spray application.

The term foliar fertilization is often used to describe liquid applications made to the leaves, or foliage, of turfgrass. But this can be misleading,with the implication that all the applied fertilizer is being taken up by the foliage. 

The reality is that only about 50% of the fertilizer applied to turfgrass foliage enters the plant through the leaves. And in many cases much less than 50% is absorbed by the leaves. Recent research by Branham et al. found that 14 to 37% of the applied nitrogen was taken up by turfgrass leaves in Illinois. Research at Arkansas by Stiegler et al. found uptake of 36 to 69% of foliar-applied nitrogen. These results are similar to the experimental results of Professor Jörg Schönherr who has done extensive research into foliar uptake of nutrient ions. Uptake is the highest at 100% humidity, so once the liquid solution has dried on the leaf, foliar uptake of the applied nutrients ceases. 

Even with the limited foliar uptake, I still prefer liquid applications to granular applications. With liquid applications, precise doses of nutrients can be spread evenly at low rates to all areas of the sward. It is impossible to get such even distribution of nutrients when applying granular products. 

When I was the superintendent at Shanghai Links, we made liquid fertilizer applications to all areas of the course as the main source of nutrients. We would allow the fertilizer to dry on the leaves, so we would get some uptake by the foliage, and we would then apply enough water to rinse the remaining fertilizer from the leaves and into the upper reaches of the soil, where the remaining nutrients could be absorbed by the roots.  

Turfgrass Teaching and Research at Oregon State University

Last week I had the opportunity to visit Oregon State University to teach one session of Dr. Rob Golembiewski's Principles of Turfgrass Maintenance class. In the morning lecture, I spoke about turfgrass maintenance in Asia and what some of the distinguishing differences are compared with typical turfgrass management in the Pacific Northwest. In the afternoon, I met with the turf club to discuss internships, career opportunities, and some of the interesting things about working in the turfgrass industry in Asia. 

I also visited the turfgrass research farm and saw the various grasses and experimental trials. Brian McDonald is the research assistant for turf management at OSU and he showed me some of the interesting research being done with fertilizer trials, fungicides, herbicides, mowing and rolling, irrigation, grass variety trials, divot recovery, and even some seashore paspalum research. My interest in turfgrass research started when I did earthworm control and herbicide research at this farm in 1998, just before graduating from OSU. 

The amount of research being done now is impressive and I got to see a lot of Poa annua, perennial ryegrass, red thread, pink snow mold, brown blight -- all grasses or diseases that I don't see all the time when I am working with warm-season grasses. Every time I got down for a close inspection of grass disease symptoms, June the Research Cat came over to say hello. She is, I'm informed, the farm's environmentally-friendly method of rodent control.

For more information about the turfgrass program at Oregon State University, check out www.beaverturf.com.

Ten Years Ago on a Golf Course in Japan: part 3

If you've flown into Narita Airport in Chiba prefecture near Tokyo, and have happened to look out the window, you may have been surprised when you flew over golf course after golf course as the plane descended. Chiba prefecture has more than 150 golf courses, placing it third among Japanese prefectures in golf course count. Only massive Hokkaido in the north, and Hyogo prefecture near Osaka, have more courses.

This map shows a portion of Chiba prefecture where there is an especially high concentration of golf courses. The satellite image was taken in the winter, so we see that the korai (Zoysia matrella) fairways and noshiba (Zoysia japonica) roughs are dormant.

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Many of the golf courses at Chiba were constructed in the golf course building boom of the early 1990's, and for these courses, there is a pesticide ban. I was a superintendent in 2000 and 2001 at Habu CC, which opened in 1996 and was thus subject to the pesticide ban. Here the inspection team from the prefectural government made a visit to inspect the course, the maintenance building, and our records. We could use wetting agents, Polyoxin-D, and phosphites; other than that there was very little in the way of chemical control products that we could use. 

One thing that I focused on, with the limited resources we had to maintain the course, was to have the central playing corridors in as good a condition as possible. We tried to have perfect greens, tees and fairways as good as they could be, and less attention was paid to the roughs, particularly in out-of-play areas. You can see here, in a view from behind the 14^th hole at Habu CC, that there are some weeds growing behind the green on this par 5.

I've sometimes had long discussions with Japanese greenkeepers about the philosphy of balance in golf course maintenance. If resources for maintenance are limiting, I've always strived to make green perfect and the playing corridors as good as possible. In Japan, there has historically been the idea that there should be balance on a course, and that all of the areas should be maintained. 

Balance is alright if you have enough resources to maintain every square meter at a high level, but if those resources are not there, then striving for balance is a sure way to have mediocre conditions all over the course. I think every course has the resources to make their greens perfect, and I am fine to let some out-of-play areas be a little less-maintained if I can ensure the greens will be excellent. This is still a challenge in Japan, because many courses were built in mountainous areas in a bubble economy and are inherently expensive to maintain. Maintenance budgets then get cut again and again, and it is very difficult to maintain these courses with the desired balance. I was lucky in my work, to be a foreigner, and to have an American boss. In this situation it was easier, culturally, to focus our maintenance efforts on the playing corridors.

Ten Years Ago on a Golf Course in Japan: part 2

I was the golf course superintendent at Habu CC in Chiba prefecture near Tokyo from September 2000 to August 2001. Ten years later, I'm spending this summer at Japan, partly to study and collect data about turfgrass performance, but also to remember what it is like to be a superintendent. Now halfway through my time at Japan this summer, I've come up with a list of three reasons why it is especially difficult to be a golf course superintendent here.

1. During July and August it is too hot for creeping bentgrass to grow well. This afternoon on a golf course at Chiba, the soil temperatures of a Penncross creeping bentgrass green were 36.3° at 2.5 cm, 34.8° at 5 cm, and 32.4° at 10 cm. Since July 1, I've yet to record a soil temperature on a creeping bentgrass green at less than 23.4°. In August, it is hotter on average at Osaka than it is at Atlanta, Miami, and Singapore. Tokyo is also hot and humid, averaging 31.1° for a high each day in August, with a relative humidity of 71%. That makes for a heat index in the shade of 37.6° C (99.7° F) on average every day in August.

2. So with such hot temperatures, we would need to have good irrigation systems, right? But golf courses in Japan have irrigation systems that are inadequate for the needs of the grass. There are essentially no quick couplers, so hand-watering, if done at all, is usually done by applying water from portable 1000 L tanks. This is not very effective but when there are no quick couplers, one doesn't have many other options. Most courses don't have fairway irrigation at all, and even the courses with the best irrigation systems are likely to have just a single-row system. Supplying water to the grass during the summer is one of the most difficult tasks to manage for golf course superintendents in Japan. 

3. The hot summer months when the bentgrass struggles to survive and when irrigation water is applied however it can be are also the times when the Zoysia matrella (korai) fairways and Zoysia japonica (noshiba) roughs are growing at their fastest rate, requiring more frequent mowing. With the need for handwatering and also the need for more frequent mowing during the summers, it is especially challenging then, at Japan, to have relatively small crew sizes. Most courses have only ten to fifteeen people working on course maintenance. It is a real struggle to complete all the necessary work.

I remember dealing with all of these challenges when I worked at Habu CC ten years ago. After visiting so many golf courses this summer, I see these same three challenges for golf course superintendents still exisit. During the turf science seminars I give in the winter, the most popular topics include management of soil moisture, managing creeping bentgrass during the summer, and management of ultradwarf bermudagrass. Each of those topics is in some way related to the three points identified above as the reason why Japan is one of the most difficult places to be a golf course superintendent.

The Two Green System

Yesterday I visited four eighteen hole golf courses around the Tokyo area. That is 72 holes of golf. But those 72 holes had 126 creeping bentgrass greens. How is that? One of the courses had one bentgrass green per hole, and three of the courses used the two green system and had two greens per hole. 

Putting greens are the most intensively managed area of any golf course. At Japan, where so many courses use the two green system, golf course maintenance becomes even more complicated because of having to manage twice the number of greens. There is some advantage in having two greens per hole in that ideally one green can always be kept in perfect condition for play while maintenance is performed on the closed green. When I was a greenkeeper at Japan ten years ago, I was fortunate to work at a course with one green, and from speaking with greenkeepers here there is a general consensus that a one green system is easier to work with. 

I would have to agree. Although at times it would be good to give the main green a bit of a rest, overall it is rather complicated to manage two greens on one hole. In almost all cases there would be no quick couplers at either green for handwatering. I know from experience how difficult it is to manage bentgrass greens at Japan in the summer without quick couplers. The soil conditions are usually different from the set of main greens to the sub-greens. Sometimes the grass species are different, for example with creeping bentgrass on one green and Zoysia matrella on the other. But it most cases there would be two different varieties of creeping bentgrass on the two greens. And then there are all the covers that, during the winter, need to be put on the greens every afternoon and taken off again every morning. And all this work is done with a maintenance crew that averages just over ten people. Japan is certainly among the most difficult places to be a greenkeeper.

January Seminars at Japan and Seminar Workbook Uploaded

I've been at Japan for two weeks this month and have given a series of seminars at Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and Hokkaido. Some of these seminars have been about why Japan is such a difficult place to grow cool-season grass. The quick explanation is because the low temperatures in the summer can exceed 27°C for more a month. I've also given some seminars about what I learned while working at the Masters Tournament, US Open, and Open Championship in 2010. And I gave two full-day seminars that discussed the effects of temperature on photosynthesis and the use of a growth potential model (生長能) based on optimum temperatures for turfgrass growth.

The seminar workbook for the January Turf Science Seminar 2011 is now posted at the Asian Turfgrass Center website and can be downloaded by clicking here or by clicking the workbook image below.

Why I Study Japanese

There are two monthly magazines that go to almost every golf course in Japan. One is Golf Course Seminar, published by Golf Digest Japan, for which I write a column about turfgrass science; the other is Monthly Golf Management, published by Ikki-Web, who also produce the annual Greenkeeper almanac. The Greenkeeper 2011 has five sections, the first three being reviews of major tournament preparations, what appears to be a turf science quiz, and reviews of some turf science meetings held at Japan in 2010.

It is the final two sections that make up 80% of this 358 page book, and these are the sections that I find the most interesting, and that I can, with my rudimentary Japanese, understand to some extent. These sections include the fertilizer and pesticide and mowing programs (and much much more), giving the entire maintenance schedule, really, for 26 golf courses, and then a Golf Course Data File with general information, including grass types down to variety, for 949 courses at Japan.

What specifically do I find most interesting in this book?

1. The very fact that it is published, that there is a demand for such data, that the publishers go to the effort to compile it and print it, and that so many golf courses share the information.

2. The huge variations in fertilizer application ratios and timing. Some courses are using less than 10 g N m^-2 per year for creeping bentgrass in a growing environment in which I believe 15 to 20 g N m^-2 are required. Some have an N-P-K ratio of approximately 8:1:8, which I understand, or 8:1:4, which I think in most situations would be optimum, and some have approximately 8:1:16, which I think is too much K, but I understand that also. Then there are those with approximately 1:1:1 ratios, or 3:4:2 ratios, and then I wonder what those greenkeepers are trying to accomplish by applying so much phosphorus. Or the course applying just over 6 g N m^-2 annually, but more than 13 g Mg m^-2? Why? Or how about 33 g Ca m^-2 and 1 g Mg m^-2? That is a 30:1 ratio, but in the grass Ca and Mg will have a nearly 2:1 ratio.

3. The mowing heights and number of greens mowing events are given by month, and I find it interesting that at a particular course with an unusual fertilizer ratio, the putting greens were mown 31 times in July, 16 times in August, and only 9 times in September. Did the fertilizer applications have anything to do with that? This is voyeuristic, I know, but for a turfgrass scientist who is interested in the practical aspects of turfgrass maintenance, I find it fascinating to have all this information in front of me and it gives me a tremendous number of ideas for information to discuss in training programs or magazine articles or even research projects or consulting programs.

4. I may be completely missing it, but I see nothing in the course data guides about what the soil pH or nutrient levels are, nor anything about soil organic matter content, nor anything about irrigation water quality. For some reason, these types of data are given much more weight in the United States.

5. Penncross is the preponderant bentgrass variety growing on putting greens. There are 949 facilities listed in Section 5, the Golf Course Data File. This represents nearly half the golf courses in Japan. Of these, 649 have Penncross greens.

6. The book is fascinating but seems to be lacking something that greenkeepers can actually use to help them improve playing conditions. The book is 358 pages packed full of data about golf course operations, and specifically grass types used and maintenance practices employed, on golf courses in Japan. Yet the information is, to some extent, of little practical use, because it is all passive, just in a book; it is not necessarily correct — writing out the detailed maintenance program for a course does not necessarily mean it is a correct program or one that should be copied; and for a greenkeeper who is managing Penncross, it may be of some solace to know that so many others are also managing the same grass, but it doesn't change the fact that almost any variety other than Penncross would have better performance in Japan.

Still, it is fascinating, and I look forward to seeing The Greenkeeper when it is published each fall, and it is books such as this that make me wish I knew more Japanese.

Asian Amateur Championship at Kasumigaseki Country Club

I'm at Kasumigaseki Country Club this week for the Asian Amateur Championship, where the champion will receive an invitation to the 2011 Masters Tournament and both the champion and runner-up will earn a place in the International Final Qualifying for the 2011 Open Championship. This is the most-televised amateur golf tournament in the world, with coverage in over 150 countries, and Kasumigaseki Country Club near Tokyo is in excellent condition this week for the championship.

The championship is being contested over the West Course here. The tees and fairways are manilagrass (Zoysia matrella), the roughs are Zoysia japonica, and the greens are creeping bentgrass. Zoysia matrella provides an excellent playing surface on these fairways which are in immaculate condition, being mowed daily at 10 mm, and producing the type of surface that is appreciated by Asia's elite amateur golfers along with the average golfer.

The Tokyo area has a challenging climate for creeping bentgrass during the summer months, and the summer of 2010 was extremely hot. I am impressed with the creeping bentgrass nursery here. Too many courses at Japan go without a nursery. At Kasumigaseki CC, the well-maintained nursery provides both a source of high-quality turf for any repairs to the greens along with a testing ground for improved bentgrass varieties and course maintenance practices. Through testing work over the past few years, the greenkeeper at Kasumigaseki CC has identified varieties of bentgrass that perform much better than some of the older grasses and these improved varieties are now used to improve the green conditions.

This is a classic Japanese golf course and the players this week along with television viewers around the world have a great opportunity to see this famous course and its wonderful turf.

ATC's Turf Science Seminars, March 15 & April 15 (ターフサイエンス セミナー2010)

Asian Turfgrass Center's turfgrass science seminar at Shinjuku on January 18 was a sellout, with all 100 spaces sold. The upcoming seminar on March 15 will deal with soil science, and the seminar on April 15 will focus on managing the plant to create the desired playing surface. These seminars are approved for GCSAA education points. Download the registration form here or click here for more information and a photo gallery of images from the January 18 seminar.

Turf Seminars at Osaka, Ishikawa, and Tokyo

I was at Japan this month for seminars at Osaka and Ishikawa (for Royal Turf Co.) and at Tokyo (in a seminar organized by Asian Turfgrass Center). At Osaka and Ishikawa, I spoke about successful interseeding of creeping bentgrass. The focus of my seminar was how to modify the growing environment of the turfgrass so that existing grass can grow well, and also how to create the desired growing environment for establishing new seedlings if improved bentgrass varieties such as 007 or Tyee are to be introduced.

 

At the Royal Turf Co. seminars, Dr. Richard Hurley from Rutgers University and Moriso-san, greenkeeper at Higashi-Hirono Golf Club, also gave presentations about 007 creeping bentgrass and successful management of putting greens at Japan.

Then on 18 January at Tokyo I gave a full-day seminar about Turf Science for the Greenkeeper, starting a series of three seminars on this topic by speaking about plant growth and cell expansion, photosynthesis, water use of turfgrass, and how the scientific principles can be applied by greenkeepers in their work. This seminar (and the upcoming ones on March 15 and April 15) are supported by Syngenta, The Toro Co., and Simplot. Click here for a photo gallery of images from the 18 January seminar.